Does gender matter in online learning?

Abstract

It is generally noted that computing is gendered, with women opting out of IT. Will the impact of online learning change this? Some researchers claim that women are disadvantaged in online courses. Others argue that we need a ‘women‐friendly cyber‐classroom’. Yet our experience is that the women achieve better results than the men; it is loner males that are disadvantaged by distance learning. We argue that online courses need to be people‐friendly so that no learners are disadvantaged.